Life and Death in Palestine: Information gift for a Premier — Day 2

Israeli Minster Calls for “Civil Targeted Killings” of BDS Leaders

No 1646 Posted by fw, April 21, 2016

Yesterday, Day 2 of my campaign to email a letter a day to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, I sent the following message.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Dear Premier Wynne,

Following up on my letter of Monday, April 18, and as I mentioned in my email yesterday, I intend to send you one email, Mondays through Fridays, from now until Friday, May 13, two days before you leave for Israel, May 15. My purpose is to fill in some possible gaps in your knowledge base with respect to life and death in the Israeli Occupied Territories.

Here’s my information gift to you for today. It’s the opening excerpt from a post by Richard Silverstein, a Jewish American who has been a “progressive” blogger since 2003. His blog focuses on exposing the excesses of the Israeli national security state. He introduces himself this way: “I have been interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1967 and have worked all my adult life to promote dialogue and mutual recognition. I am a progressive (critical) Zionist. I support Israeli withdrawal to pre-67 borders, the sharing of Jerusalem, a Law of Return that applies equally to Jews and Palestinian refugees seeking to immigrate, and an internationally-guaranteed peace agreement with the Palestinians.”

To read the full piece click on the following linked title. At the bottom of this excerpt is a link to a 6-min 33-sec video of Minister Israel Katz calling for the civil targeted killing of BDS leaders like Omar Barghouti.

The Yediot Achronot conference attacking BDS has become a veritable carnival of hate. Everyone from delusional Hollywood celebrities (Roseanne Barr) [Video] to cabinet ministers, to the leader of the Opposition have pledged fealty to the cause. Two of the speakers are under criminal investigation for corrupt political or financial dealings.

But the apogee came yesterday when Intelligence Minister Israel Katz called for the “civil targeted killing“ [Video] of BDS leaders like Omar Barghouti. The phrase he used (sikul ezrahi memukad) derives from the euphemistic Hebrew phrase for the targeted killing of a terrorist (the literal meaning is “targeted thwarting”). But the added word “civil” makes it something different. Katz is saying that we won’t physically murder BDS opponents, but we will do everything short of that.

We are entering dangerous territory when an Israeli cabinet minister engages in wordplay that implicitly places a bull’s-eye on the backs of non-violent activists. If there are Israel apologists out there who dismiss the significance of such rhetoric they are sadly mistaken. In this torrid political environment in which Israeli leftists have become criminals and wounded Palestinian youth may be summarily executed in the street, it is only too easy to foresee Palestinian activists like Barghouti having a bounty on their heads.

Does anyone doubt there are scores of Yigal Amirs* out there who’d be pleased to strike a blow for their hateful cause by putting a bullet in the head of a Palestinian? [*Amirs assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 1995].

Not to be outdone, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri voiced blatant lies claiming Barghouti and other BDS activists are in the pay of terrorist organizations and nations hostile to Israel. He warned that Israel would use the full force of its intelligence services against BDS treating them as if they are terrorists. In this circumstance, and knowing Israel has engaged in serial assassinations of its enemies, it’s not hard to foresee where this could end.

He again argued that BDS is not a political movement, but a group whose goal is Israel’s destruction. In this world view, there is no difference between Omar Barghouti, Hassan Nasrallah, Ayatollah Khamenei…or even Adolf Hitler. It’s truly a paranoiac state harboring a profound persecution complex.

END OF EXCERPT – To continue reading, click on the above linked title…